One example was "Lick" by Julia Wolfe, written for a sextet corresponding to the Bang on a Can All-Stars, including bass, piano and electric guitar (played by one of the ensemble's violinists, Mary Rowell).
Written for the versatile sextet yMusic, all of whose members were present in Mr. Kahane's band at the Allen Room, the songs strike a beguiling balance among chamber-music refinement, a folksy rusticity provided by Mr. Kahane's banjo, and the striking friezes and whorls of Lowell's poetry.
"Swan Song No. 1," scored for the unusual sextet of flute, oboe, mandolin, guitar, violin and cello, was written for the Cygnus Ensemble, which will give the first performance of the piece in New York next month.
Though not written for Eighth Blackbird, Mr. Svensson's piece played to the sextet's penchant for works involving extramusical theatrics and light choreography, a taste even more evident in Amy Beth Kirsten's "Pirouette on a Moon Sliver," for solo flute.
"Since 1928 we have 15 concertos and over 300 works of chamber music," she answered, also citing the 85 she wrote for her sextet.
Fred Sherry, the cellist and the society's former artistic director, joins the eminent and excellent quartet and Paul Neubauer, the violist, in the sextet; while current director David Shifrin takes the clarinet line, which Brahms wrote for a musician he described as "the best wind player that I know".
These days he's writing for his own sextet called Central Chain, including Mr. Berne, and for a duo with the drummer Ches Smith.
And it turns out Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of "Hamilton" ― who just nabbed himself a Golden Globe nomination for the song he wrote for the Disney animated film "Moana" ― is one little "O" away from completing the sextet.
And on yet a further stylistic tangent, the String Sextet (1916), written by Korngold as a 17-year-old prodigy, features a restless, often rhapsodic, whirl of melodic ideas, set in opulent harmonic garb reminiscent of Richard Strauss.
The works Threadgill wrote for his seven-member Sextett (or Sextet) in the 1980s were characterized by irony, blues, and abstraction.
